Make the Most of Your Time With Kings

 “God has helped me to this very day; so I stand here and testify to small and great alike.”
 – Acts 26:22

Mother Teresa dedicated her life to doing what Jesus Christ tells his followers to do in Matthew 25:35-36. She gave food to the hungry. She gave clean water to the thirsty. She gave a home to homeless strangers. She gave clothes to the naked. She gave free medical care to the sick.

And just three and a half years before she died, 83-year-old Mother Teresa was invited to Washington D.C. to be the keynote speaker at the National Prayer Breakfast. On February 5, 1994, Mother Teresa spoke to an audience of 4,000, which included some of the highest-level leaders in the United States, including President Bill Clinton. As the frail little Catholic nun stepped up to speak, her head didn’t even extend above the microphones mounted on the podium. Here is a small part of her impassioned message: “I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child.... Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.”

When given an audience that included the leader of the free world, that’s what Mother Teresa said. If you had been given that opportunity, what would you have said to them? Let’s take a look at what the Apostle Paul said when he was given a similar opportunity.

Paul had been cooling his heels in prison for two years while the corrupt Governor Felix waited for him to bribe his way out. Finally, Governor Felix was booted out of office, and Paul was called into court to stand before the new Roman governor of Judea, Porcius Festus. And Governor Festus responded ... by asking Paul if he wanted to go to Jerusalem and stand trial there.

Paul knew he’d been given the runaround by Governor Felix, and it seemed Governor Festus was doing the same. So, Paul gave him this very respectful but eloquent response: “I am now standing before Caesar’s court, where I ought to be tried. I have not done any wrong to the Jews, as you yourself know very well. If, however, I am guilty of doing anything deserving death, I do not refuse to die. But if the charges brought against me by these Jews are not true, no one has the right to hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar!” (Acts 25:10-11).

God had promised Paul that he’d get a chance to share the Gospel in Rome, and Paul probably decided it was time to “get this show on the road.” The quickest way to get there would be to claim his right as a Roman citizen to have his case appealed to the highest court in the empire. So, Paul asked for his court case to be transferred to the Caesar himself, Emperor Nero.

In Acts 26, before Paul was transferred to Rome, he was given the opportunity to share his personal testimony with a lower-level ruler: King Agrippa. Paul spoke to the king respectfully, saying that he considered himself “fortunate to stand and offer my defense” before King Agrippa. Then, in a courtroom filled with powerful leaders, he shared his testimony: the story of his own persecution of Christians, his life-changing revelation on the Road to Damascus, and his mission to share the gospel of Jesus Christ from that day forward. And in verse 26, he pointed out that the king was familiar with both the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah and the events surrounding Jesus’ death and resurrection. In front of everyone in the room—all the political, military leaders and religious leaders—Paul asked the king a question that could lead to him embracing the truth that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of the living God: “King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do” (v. 27).

But instead of responding with a genuine, heartfelt answer, King Agrippa took the easy way out by asking a question of his own: “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?” (v. 28). That is what we called a missed opportunity. King Agrippa heard the good news of Jesus Christ, and I believe the Spirit of Almighty God was whispering in his ear, “Today is the day of salvation.” But King Agrippa said, “No!” He squandered that moment. He put Jesus off until tomorrow. And as best we can tell, for King Herod Agrippa II, tomorrow never came. He never turned from his sin and received the grace of Christ.

I’d like to share two life lessons that we can draw from this passage.

Lesson #1: When given the opportunity to stand before high-ranking leaders, treat them with kindness and respect. Regardless of the way Paul was treated by governing leaders, he spoke to them with kindness and respect. As Chuck Swindoll puts it: “When God grants us the rare opportunity to stand before prestigious people and high-ranking government officials, it is best to demonstrate courtesy and grace. Regardless of their lifestyle, speak with respect…. To come on like gangbusters will surely be an offense, and the door of opportunity will slam shut…. Despite his chains and their differences, [Paul] addressed them with kindness and respect.”

Lesson #2: Don’t squander your God-given opportunities to truly believe, repent and submit to God’s will for your life. King Agrippa heard Paul share about his experience on the Road to Damascus and how it changed his life forever. And King Agrippa COULD have had his own Road to Damascus experience right then and there. But foolishly, King Agrippa squandered his God-given opportunity. He chose not to believe, not to repent and not to submit to God’s will for his life. What a tragedy!

If you have never accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, you are being offered your own Road to Damascus moment. You have the God-given opportunity to believe in Jesus Christ, turn from your sin and submit to God’s will for your life. The question is, are you going to respond like Paul or like Agrippa? Will you take hold of this opportunity, or will you squander it? 

Dane Davis is the pastor of Impact Christian Church in Victorville. Pastor Dane’s latest book (Called to Persevere: One Man’s Journey to Overcome Pain, Disease and Disappointment with God) is NOW available at Amazon. For more information, visit www.GreaterImpact.cc or www.Called2Persevere.com.

A Little Kindness Goes a Long Way

“If anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little one because

he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.” 

- Matthew 10:42

Last Monday—after waiting in line for over an hour for toilet paper at Target—I found myself longing to return to the big box store later that day. Why? Am I a glutton for punishment? No. I wanted to return to the hullaballoo because of the amazing thing God had taught me while I was there.

Shortly before 7 a.m., I arrived at the Apple Valley Super Target, and I took my place in line outside the store. There were about 50 people lined up in front of me. I said to myself, “Under the circumstances, this line isn’t that bad.” But after entering the store, grabbing a shopping cart, and making my way to the toilet paper aisle, I learned that there was a second line forming inside the store. Of the 50 people who had been ahead of me in line outside, around 40 of them had already formed a line for toilet paper inside.

And wouldn’t you know it! The line was at a standstill. There wasn’t a single package of toilet paper on the shelves, but the Target team members assured us that toilet paper would be trickling in as it arrived. So, we waited. And waited. And waited.

Surprisingly, the one-hour wait was quite entertaining. The two young ladies in front of me in line were wearing double-barreled gas masks and giggling as they held up their cell phones to take selfies and make video calls to their boyfriends. And after a few minutes in line, I turned around and began talking with the middle-aged man standing behind me as well as the two chatty ladies in line behind him. It quickly became clear that these two ladies were strong Christians who attended church regularly and trusted in Jesus Christ to see them through these troubled times.

After about ten minutes in the standstill line, I thought to myself, “I might as well get some other shopping done.” So, I asked my three new friends in line if they’d mind holding my place for me while I grabbed some eggs. They quickly agreed, so I offered to grab some eggs for them as well. After a few minutes I returned to my cart---still no movement in the line. So, I left the line a second time to grab a few more items. Over the next 40 minutes I left the line an additional three or four times.

Finally, I reached the front of the toilet paper line, and there was just one package left. I felt bad taking the last package, because I knew that the man behind me in line had been, like me, waiting for an hour. And I knew that he had an appointment to get to, and he wouldn’t have time to wait the 20-30 minutes for the next shipment to arrive.

So, without giving it much thought, I tore open my newly-acquired package of toilet paper and gave him a couple rolls. You wouldn’t believe the sounds of shock that came from the crowd behind me. It was as if I had just handed him two gold bars. The man offered to pay me for the entire package, but I said, “Don’t worry about it!” as I made my way to the checkout line.

After waiting in the checkout line for a minute or two, a Target manager asked me to step into a closed checkout line, and she began to ring me up. She said, “I saw what you did. Thank you for taking care of one of our guests.” I stood there in disbelief as she gave me free plastic bags for my groceries, plus a 10% discount on my entire order.

As I pushed my cart out the door, tears welled up in my eyes. The Lord had revealed to me this simple truth: During this coronavirus pandemic—as millions of our fellow Americans are running around in fear like chickens with their heads cut off—simple acts of kindness will carry a much greater impact than usual. As followers of Jesus Christ head to Target, WalMart, Costco, Stater Bros., and WinCo and carry out simple acts of kindness and love in Jesus’ name, people’s hearts will be touched in a way that they wouldn’t normally be touched.

Never forget, followers of Christ, that God never wastes anything. On so many different levels, this coronavirus pandemic is a stress-producing nightmare. But we serve a God who specializes in bringing life and goodness out of the ashes. We serve a God who works “all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).

So, in the days to come—as you venture out from your home and cross the paths of perfect strangers at the store, at work, or at your favorite drive-thru—please be kind. Be compassionate. Be patient. And allow every word that you speak and every action you carry out to communicate this peace-giving message: “It’s going to be okay. If we trust in God, He will see us through.” 

Dane Davis is the Pastor of Impact Christian Church. During this COVID-19 outbreak, please join us for our online worship service Sundays at 10 a.m. Simply go to www.GreaterImpact.cc to view the service on our homepage.

Our Words Matter

"Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversations be always full of grace … so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

 – Colossians 4:5-6

About 10 years ago, I was officiating a funeral for an older widow who had attended my church for many years. (To protect the innocent, I’ll call her Martha.) There I was at the mortuary, standing 12 feet or so from her casket as I spoke at the service. I wasn’t sure I was really connecting with her grieving family, so I thought I would share something about Martha that demonstrated that I had known her personally. So I said, “One thing that stands out to me about Martha is how she used to always wear white gloves to church during the winter. I appreciated that because, like her, my hands get cold during the winter. In fact, my hands have two settings: They’re either hot and clammy or cadaver cold.”

And then it hit me. I had just used the word “cadaver” in a funeral message while standing just a few feet from the poor lady’s casket. For some reason Martha’s family never contacted me again after that service.

Do words matter? Absolutely, words matter. A judge says a few words, and a defendant’s life is either spared or condemned. A doctor says a few words, and a patient will either throw a party or start finalizing her will. And as followers of Jesus Christ, our words can either lead to many unbelievers turning to Christ—or many unbelievers running as fast as they can in the opposite direction. Words matter. As Paul writes to the Colossians, he gives his Christian readers some powerful insights about how we should use our words for good.

1) We should be praying. Too many of us pray only at certain times: for 15 seconds before a meal, for 30 seconds before bed, or in a church service. But God’s word says, “Devote yourselves to prayer.” As followers of Jesus we should be in constant fellowship with God so that we maintain an open line of communication and talk with Him naturally throughout the day. Our prayers should also be thankful. When we focus our minds and tongues on praising God for who He is and thanking Him for what He’s done, it gets our prayers moving in the right direction. And our praying must be purposeful.  In verses 3-4, Paul asks his readers to pray for him and his ministry team so that God will “open a door for our message, so that we may [clearly] proclaim the mystery of Christ.” And that leads us to the second thing that our words should be doing every day….
 

2) We should be proclaiming God’s Word. Paul wrote most of his letters from a prison cell. Now, if you or I were in prison, our instinctive prayer would probably be, “Please, God, GET ME OUTTA HERE!” But Paul didn’t submit that prayer request, did he? He simply wants the Colossian Christians to pray that he and his companions will be able to proclaim God’s word clearly and effectively—even though that was what put him in prison in the first place. Whenever Paul was arrested or beaten or imprisoned, it was either because people didn’t like the plain truth he shared about Jesus, or it was because far too many people were accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior, and that ticked a lot of people off. Which leads us to Paul’s third point…

3) We should be witnessing to the lost. Every day Paul tried to make the most of every opportunity to point people to Christ with his words and with his actions. As followers of Jesus Christ, we live in a culture that has become downright hostile to biblical Christianity. Every day there are people around us who are just waiting for us to screw up. We’re accused of being hypocrites, narrow-minded, judgmental, hateful, intolerant and homophobic. Now, I’ve been around thousands of Christians in my lifetime, and in my experience, Christians who truly love the Lord and are hiding His word in their hearts and are following Him faithfully are NOT these things. But it’s an uphill battle to prove this to many who Paul calls “outsiders.” He advises us: “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversations be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone (vs. 5-6).”

We need to be wise in the way we act and in the way that we speak. When we do, guess what happens. People who desperately need to hear the truth about their sin and Jesus’ salvation begin to listen to the truth that we speak. And many who begin as “outsiders” end up repenting of their sin, getting saved and becoming Christ-following “insiders.” That’s exactly what the Lord has called us to do.

Dane Davis is the Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville. For more information, visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com  and join us for worship Sundays at 10 am.

Shed Those Grave Threads!

“You have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” – Colossians 3:9-10

When Lazarus walked out of the tomb after being dead for four days, he looked like a mummy all wrapped up in his grave clothes. They were probably dirty and, to put it delicately, must have stunk to high heaven. So, what was the first thing Jesus told Lazarus’s family to do? “Take off the grave clothes, and let him go.” Since Lazarus was no longer dead, he no longer needed his dirty, smelly mummy outfit. He was ready for some fresh, new threads.

The same goes for you and me with our old sinful nature. When we come to Christ, we step out of the tomb and leave our old sins behind: the sexual immorality, impurity, lust, greed, coveting, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language and lies (Colossians 3:5-9). Those are nasty grave clothes that do nothing but shame our Lord and drag us down. As followers of Jesus who have been spiritually raised from the dead, we have no business clinging to our dirty, smelly sin threads. It’s time to put on Jesus’ fresh, new threads.

Paul described our old GRAVE clothes really well in verses 5-9, and he goes on to describe our new GRACE clothes really well in verses 12-17. Just as we layer our physical clothes on a cold day, we need to layer our spiritual clothes in this sinful world we live in. These new clothes have 10 layers for us to put on:

1. Put on compassion. Our hearts have to break for those around us who are dead in their sins and lost without Christ. And our hearts need to break for Christians around us who make dumb choices but are in need of grace and forgiveness.

2. Put on kindness. One of the most beautiful examples of kindness in the Bible is when King David reached out to a crippled man named Mephibosheth and adopted him into his family. Mephibosheth could never repay King David for his kindness, but that didn’t matter to David. Kindness never worries about someone returning the favor.

3. Put on humility. This is a mindset where you don’t think highly of yourself, but you also don’t think poorly of yourself. In fact, you think about yourself very little. As humble Christians, we should think first about Christ, second about each other and third about ourselves. That’s a humble mindset.

4. Put on gentleness. In Paul’s day this word referred to power under control. We have the ability to destroy others with our words and actions, but instead we exercise restraint for the good of others.

5. Put on patience. Remember that two of the sins of our old nature are anger and rage. But as followers of Christ, we are supposed to crucify and bury our short fuses. We are not to be short-tempered. We’re supposed to be long-tempered.

6. Put on forbearance. When Christians around us screw up, we may feel that they deserve our judgment and wrath. But forbearance holds back. There are times when we need to take another Christian to task. But these times are few and far between.

7. Put on forgiveness. Whether it’s your ex-husband or a trusted friend who stabbed you in the back … anyone who’s wronged you needs to be forgiven. Unforgiveness is part of our old, smelly grave clothes. Crucify and bury it. And put on forgiveness in its place. 

8. Put on love. Of all the traits that should distinguish a church and the Christians within it, love should be at the top of the list. It’s nice to be known as friendly. It’s great to be known as kind, patient and forgiving. But the greatest of these descriptions is … loving. Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

9. Put on peace. When Christ saves us, Jesus sets us free from three wars that we were engaged in: our war with God, our war with people and our war with ourselves. As followers of the Prince of Peace we can now live at peace with God, at peace with others and at peace with ourselves.

10. Put on thankfulness. God has been so good to us. But it’s so easy to think the way the world thinks—to focus on what He hasn’t done for us. “God didn’t heal my family member who died of cancer. God didn’t restore my broken marriage. God didn’t get me that job.” Oh, friends, God didn’t do many things. But I guarantee you that the things God DID do in your life far outnumber the things that He DIDN’T do. So, you and I must be thankful.

Our Christian life means taking off our old sinful selves and putting on our fresh, new selves which are being conformed to the image of Jesus. So, take off your old grave clothes and put on the brand new clothes of Jesus Christ! We are called to wear these fresh, new threads everywhere—at church, at school, at home and at work.

Dane Davis is the Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville. For more information, visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com  and join us for worship Sundays at 10 am.